The present invention relates generally to agricultural equipment, and more specifically to a disk harrow bearing standard designed to fit tubes of different cross sections.
Disk harrows are widely used in tillage operations and include gangs of disk blades supported from bearing standards which depend from the harrow frame. Typically, each bearing standard is designed to fit a support tube of unique cross section. As the weight class of the disk is increased or other load requirements are increased which require larger cross section tubes, the bearing standard usually must be changed also. Since the standards are usually either a casting or a welded design, such changes are expensive, even when the only change required is that to the mounting area which attaches to the support tube. In addition, presently available designs have mounting pads to keep the standard from rotating when disking forces are applied from the disk gangs. The mounting pads are necessarily larger than the tube in order to prevent assembly problems. When loads are applied, the standard is free to rotate until the pad is contacted. This rotation allows for misalignment of the standard on the support tube.
Most disk harrows also include gang scrapers mounted to the support tube for cleaning the disks. When the mounting tube sizes change, the parts which mount the scrapers must also be changed to assure that the scrapers are always at a fixed location relative to the disk blade center line. The additional parts and/or mounting holes required for adapting the bearing standard and scraper tube mounting to different tube cross sections increase the cost and complexity of the disk harrow.